Socializing of the West

The Soviet experiment came crashing down in early 1990s. Everyone since then has basically proclaimed the victory of capitalism and moved on.

Now are we seeing the capitalism in retreat. Are we now ready to claim the death of capitalism.If one were to see the steps that the Obama administration is taking then I think we can be quite confident that a red carpet welcome is being given to socialism.

Excess of a prinicple is bad. This was demonstrated by the Soviets when they took Marxism to its extreme...totalitarianism. This ensured the collapse. Now America has taken capitalism to its extreme... unfettered greed. This has caused the economic meltdown that we are seeing. We need to find a middle ground but human tendency will not allow this. So we will be like a pendulum swinging between extremes!

Individual vs a Cause

Someone today saw me wearing my Livestrong band and asked me how was my hero doing? It took me a couple of minutes to realize that he/she was talking about Lance Armstrong and I replied that he was not my hero. I do not think they really understood this.

However it got me thinking, how easily we mix up a cause with an individual. The cause is and has to be greater than the individual. Individuals come and go but it takes a long time for a cause to be addressed. In this case the cause is cancer. The band is worn so that people are aware how real cancer and its impact is on people and NOT to demonstrate Lance's participation or win in another Tour de-France.

As we lead our lives we tend to ignore or not think about things like cancer, AIDs etc. Not because we do not care about it but because they are rather unpleasant to think about. However when these diseases affect us or near & dear ones, unpleasant turns to dispair and at times sadness. It is precisely for these reasons one must be aware of these diseases and the efforts to control and/or eradicate them, so that they can just be an unpleasant experience at worst.

However the reason for me wearing the band is that day has still not arrived and it serves as a reminder to me that help in any form to support eradication/control/education about these diseases it is and should be a necessary and important part of how to tackle these diseases.

Clinton vs Obama

This is an exciting race......

I believe that the press and media are significantly influencing the race. I have watched Meet the Press, PBS, CNN and listened to NPR and the talk shows and I can say that they only discuss Clinton's past esp... during the Clinton presidential years. 

This, I feel, is extremely unfair to Hillary. While I agree that Bill did not live up to his potential and had several scandals, but, come on, wasn't his presidency better than the current one... economically it was in a better state and so was it in the eyes of the world. But yes there were personal scandals.  But why is Hillary being penalised. There is this fear that some how Bill will be this ghost that will hover around if Hillary is elected president. Is this real? No, it is just because it is a woman running after her man and not a man after his woman.... this country inspite of all its rhetoric, is still biased in favor of men.

Talking of rhetoric.... that is what Obama is all about. There is no policy debate in this country. No press or media is paying attention to it. At the end of the day if you have good oratory prowess you can be the president of the United States. Remember history has several examples of several leaders who came to power based on the power of their rhetoric. Therefore it is the duty and responsibility of the media to have a real policy debate to ensure that we have a good president.... 

Obama is no doubt an excellent candidate. Through all the debates  I feel that Hillary is the better candidate. While Obama is compared to JKF, look at the records... JKF has more experience than Obama. Also while Obama has spoken so eloquently about making a change, he has spent time in the Senate he has not really done anything he can boast of. Even the vote against the war did not change the facts of the ground. A true leader needs to show action and results and not a protest. 

All I think the media needs to convey is a balanced policy debate which is lacking today....

There are very high expectations regarding Obama without any real substance being discussed. I hope this country does not get let down again after 8 years of being let down.

A Good Read

Just finished reading a book on the Iran Hostage crisis - "Guests of the Ayatullah" by Mark Bowden. An excellent read.

Apart from the suffering of the hostages, what comes across in the book, is the fact these hostages where nothing but pawns in the bigger picture. They were used as bait by Khomeini and his cronies to get a control on power in Iran. Here they not only used the hostages but also the students who took the hostages. In a sense the students were hostages in their own country.

The other thing that comes across is how helpless the Carter Administration was. Carter lost his re-election bid because of the hostage crisis. The media and the opposition kept hounding him for inaction but no-one offered any credible solution. When he dared to take the risk of sending in a rescue mission fraught with risks up the wazoo... and failed; he was taken to task for it as well. After reading the book I felt the Carter administration was unfairly judged for their role in the Iran hostage crisis. As a matter of fact, you come away thinking they demonstrated extremely good judgement in the way it was handled.

24hr news cycles had just begun at the time. The medias desire to feed the news put enormous amounts of pressure on the administration. It gave the students a medium to make their revolution larger than it deserved credit for. This 24hr news cycles continue to this day. There seems to be a desire to discuss and report every minuscule dramatic event happening in the world. But no conclusions are derived... no lessons learned. The news channels use catchy phrases to describe the news ... "War on Terror!" is such an ambiguous phrase and is liberally applied to everything.

Then they move on to the next big thing.... We will never solve this terrorism issue until we stay on the subject and identify the underlying causes and give enough time to our policy makers to debate the issue and come up with appropriate solutions which will inevitably be much longer term implementation plans that will not suit the 24hr news cycles......

On Terms and Conditions

We just got back from a trip where we had some bad experiences with the Airline and our travel company. For every screwup they just kept pointing to their terms and conditions. Seat assignments not honored.... there is a term&condition (t&c) which says there is no guarantee that your seat requests will be honored. Meal requests not met there is a t&c for that.

Have you ever read any of these t&cs before signing up for a trip or a purchase in detail. You are told it is just legal stuff... cya for the companies till you are affected by it. These t&cs only get longer and longer.

So it got me wondering why can't I as a consumer have my own term and conditions under which I accept their service. For example: if I make a seat request and the airline cannot honor it I am notified about this right away & not at the airport. Else they bump me up to business class (free of charge of course!) or give me a partial refund.

I wonder why lawyers out there are not promoting consumer terms and conditions. We can also have boiler plate t&cs for the consumers which if not honored by these companies will not have the privilage of serving me :-)

Energy Independence

So Mr Bush finally is saying those magical words about Energy Independence with some vigor; at least in rhetoric. His state of the union spent some time discussing this. Some sections of the press have attribute this to mean that White House is finally agreeing to the public opinion on Global Warming. However I think White House policy on Energy Independence has nothing to do with Global Warming.

If one looks at the pressure on oil, it is clear that it is on the rise. China and India are competing with US for this. Though China and India consume significantly less than US, their rates of increase are significant. Also new oil finds are becoming fewer by the year. And last if one looks at the nations with any significant oil reserves, apart from Saudi Arabia and Iraq (long term relations of Iraq with US are uncertain), none of the other nations (including Iran, Russia, Venezuela) have anything like a friendly relationship with US. Also China is on the move where the US dreads to thread in places like Sudan, where China is building relations with these countries; completely ignoring their human rights record.

So it makes perfect sense for the US to start thinking Energy Independence. However the emphasis is on Bio-Diesel rather than other natural resources. I am not sure how this pans out. This would mean that US may start becoming more dependent on corn and soy imports from places like Brazil and Mexico and guess what; this would mean bringing more land under cultivation in places like Brazil, as growing soy becomes more lucrative, putting more pressure on already dwindling rain forests.

Therefore I think energy independence while good doesnot necessarily mean supportive policies on global warming. One needs to be careful at arriving at these conclusions. While the carbon footprint may reduce by switching from Oil to Bio-diesel I wonder if this takes land usage into account if one replaces Oil. There has to be a balance between Bio-Diesel and other forms of energy (Solar, Wind etc). Also what about policies in China and India, and how will US influence their policies, for if the US is serious about Global Warming then it needs to take a leadership role and influence policies in those countries for measures against Global Warming to be truely effective.

Mortality

These days human mortality is very much on my mind. Seeing the suffering of my dad is very difficult for me. He has always been a vision of strength for me, alway sure of what he wants and how he wants to get there. However ever since he was diagnosed with Cancer he has been a very different person.

People change when affected with cancer. Cancer is unlike anyother disease that I have encountered. Cancer is a disease of probabilities and uncertainities. It is a disease that requires decisions and asks hard questions. Is quality of life more important than length of life? I have grappled with these questions as I try and put myself in my dads shoes. There are no easy answers.

Human life is full of predicaments. We enter this world with a processor and an empty memory. But when we are ready to leave it the memory is full and unfortunately the dying processor is thriving on that memory! That is why I think an infant facing death is oblivious of this than an old man.

But unfortunately human life has a certain mortality associated with it. But why? Why is human life mortal.... I donot know. Maybe so that we can value it.

China makes moves

China is on the move! Two big moves in 2 weeks. First they convinced (or arm twisted?) North Korea to restart the six party talks. Now they have held a conference soliciting relations with the most ignored but resource endowed continent; Africa.

We can discuss North Korea separately. However the moves on Africa is interest according to me. It is interesting that China has chosen Africa at this time. America is caught up in a struggle in middle east. Pressure on natural resources is increasing day by day. The fight has begun. While American policy is to go after the top of list of countries endowed with natural resources (Saudi Arabia, Iraq), China seems to be approaching it differently. It is going after areas which might have good sources of these resources but are politically risky.

Africa is a continent engulfed with complexities. For America, exploitation of the resources in the continent, requires a compromise with its foreign policy principles of democracy. Also America is militarily caught up in another area of the world - Iraq and no matter what the rhetoric, that fight is also tied to the fact of ensuring resources for the future; it is just a different approach- the belief that democracy in these countries will make the countries strong allies of America in the future.

China on the other hand has no such scruples. It is purely interested in accessing the resources, the political situation in these countries are of minimal interest to it as far as it does not interfere with its original goal. So this conference in China. Where with promises of loans and debt relief, China is seen as a champion of the African nations. There is no talk of human rights abuses or the requirement of reforming the continent either in terms of economic reform or political reform (as would have been the case had America hosted such a conference). The African leadership is more than eager to therefore work with China as it can go on about its business and enrich themselves without any commitment to reforming their countries.

However I feel once America gets out of its Imbroglio in Iraq and if Africa delivers on its natural resources, the next foreign policy battle ground could be Africa.